most passes when enoding mpeg-2 in any program

[mysticgohan17]

i want to get a really good svcd of my anime dvds. i want to know how many passes i can have in any mpeg-2 encoder. i've seen a svcd thats used 4 passes, tmpg has a 2-pass setting, is there a 5-pass setting in anyother encoder?

[SaSi]

CCE gives you the count of passes your heart desires... It is also said to be the best (and fastest) software encoder in the market.

[sterno]

Actually I think the most passes CCE lets you have in one encode is 9, but you can keep doing more encodes since it saves the analysis data with every encode. However, anything past 3 or 4 is probably not worth the time.

[ZippyP.]

Seems to me that the purpose of multi-pass vbr is to make efficient use of a given bitrate. Like sterno says, once you go beyond 4 can it get much better? Increasing the bitrate would make more sense to me.

[Donny661]

Another good thing to do is use the right quantinization matrix so that it will soften the sharp edges of animated or cg source. The sharp edges are hard for any mpeg based encoder to compress well with little noise so using a good quantinization matrix desinged for animation or softening the video before you send it to the encoder is good. TMPG and CCE above 2.50 allow you switch matricies and they both have ones designed for animation/cg.